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Monday, October 17, 2016

The widow of a Nigerian
activist Esther Kiobel is planning to sue Royal Dutch Shell in the Dutch courts
alleging the oil company was complicit in the execution of her husband by the
Nigerian military in 1995, court documents filed in the United States last week
show.

Esther Kiobel's husband,
Barinem Kiobel (pictured right) was a prominent member of government who
opposed the devastation wrought by Shell Oil and opposed the violence being
committed against the opposition.

In 1994, he was arrested
along with Ken Saro-Wiwa and seven other leaders of Movement for the Survival
of the Ogono People, MOSOP. They were tortured for a year and then executed.
Their bodies were dumped in unmarked graves in a Port Harcourt cemetery. Esther
fled Nigeria, applied successfully for asylum status in the United States.

Esther Kiobel has filed
an application in New York to secure documents from Shell’s U.S. lawyers, which
she could use in the Dutch action The filings with the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District Court of New York said she planned to begin that action
before the end of the year.

"Ms. Kiobel will
demonstrate that Shell encouraged, facilitated, and conspired with the Nigerian
government to commit human rights violations against the Ogoni people,” a
memorandum in the application filed last week said.

A Shell spokesman saidon Sunday: “Shell remains firmly committed to supporting
fundamental human rights in line with the legitimate role of business. We have
always denied, in the strongest possible terms, the allegations made by the
plaintiffs in this tragic case."

Kiobel
previously took her lawsuit to the United States but the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled in 2013 that the case could not be heard because the alleged activities
took place outside the country.

In 2009 prior to that
ruling Shell had agreed in the United States to pay US$15.5 million to settle
lawsuits related to other activists executed at the same time as Barinem
Kiobel, including author and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Kiobel’s lawyer did not
immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

John Donovan, who runs
the royaldutchshellplc.com protest
website, and who has advised Kiobel on the case said: "She’s going after
Shell in their home country, the Netherlands".

The Nigerian military
cracked down heavily on local opposition to oil production by a Shell joint
venture in the Niger Delta in the early 1990s. Kiobel alleges that Shell
provided support to the military in its crackdown.

A Dutch court ruled in
December that Shell may be sued in the Netherlands for oil spills at its
subsidiary in Nigeria, although it did not say Shell was responsible.